Theater Log Book Term 3 - January 6th 2014

Antonin Artaud was a theater practitioner born on the 4th September 1896 and died on the 4th March 1948. He was a french playwright, poet, actor and a theater director.
Her theater practitioner theory was the 'Theater of Cruelty'. Artaud believed that theater should be able to communicate to the audience and represent reality. Therefore, he wanted her theater creations to affect the audience as much as possible. From my own understanding his theory was similar to Brecht's idea, in the terms of the 'verfremdungs' effect (alienating the audience), whilst breaking down the 4th wall that stands between the audience and actors in traditional theaters. In contrary his ideology was to create reality on stage whereas Bertolt Brecht wanted to create as much fiction as possible by exaggerating stereotypes. In this case I could say in some ways he's also similar to Konstantin Stanislavsky as he wanted to show project reality on stage.
Despite the fact, in Artaud's way of creating reality, he wanted to tap into the subconscious mind, therefore, the surrealist used to take drugs to experience illusions that he would then use and share as ideas for the theater. His influence from this strange type of reality was from when he moved to Paris in March 1920. After the world war one, the society had to redefine the reality of the countries, therefore some of Artaud's inspiration came from the idea of combining reality with dreams in order to create a surreal reality. These situations that Antonin Artaud experienced probably influenced him to also discover his talent for 'avant-garde' theater. The 'avant' works are experimental or innovative with the respect to art, culture, and politics. However, it pushes the boundaries of what is accepted as a 'norm' or 'status-quo'. Artaud believed that movement and gestures spoke louder than words, which meant that he chose to create theater with minimal text. He also used combination of distorted forms of lighting, sounds and other performance elements.
In order to create the Theater of Cruelty, Antonin Artaud wanted to combine surrealism and metaphysics. He wanted the world we see in our dreams which are a fantasy mixed with reality and combining it with the understandings of the world, such as existence, general objects and their properties, space, time, cause and effect, and possibility.
The main investigation into metaphysics is 'ontology' which focuses on basic categories of being and how they relate to each other. Another branch is 'cosmology', which is the study of origin, fundamental structure, nature and dynamics of the universe.
Antonin Artaud reassessed the spectator actor relationship and all the rules of a traditional theater. This could include a different stage, such as performing in traverse or in a round instead of traditionally where the audience watch the stage in front above them. Also by breaking down the 4th wall between the audience and actors, Artaud may have included audience interaction or direct address too!
Comedy was one of Antonin Artaud's interests which I believe could have had an influence on his type of performances, signifying that he may have made many of them comedic or with a funny light side towards some of them!
Overall, Antonin Artaud used 'Total Theater' in his work which means that it includes every aspect of theater possible. Additionally, he used 'Catharsis' which is when emotions are let out through art, specifically pity or fear, or any extreme change in emotion that results in renewal and restoration. Antonin's Theater of Cruelty has been created in order to restore to the theater a passionate conception of life.